Fueled by a federal grant, Cañada College in Redwood City will spearhead a statewide effort to improve engineering education and increase the number of students in that area.

Cañada has earned a grant worth $150,000 from the National Science Foundation, ﻿an independent federal agency, to help other community colleges across California strengthen or build their own engineering programs, the school said.

Amelito Enriquez, an engineering and math professor at Cañada, is leading the project.

“He’ll help create engineering programs at other community colleges with the idea of getting more engineering students into four-year universities and graduating more engineering students,” Cañada spokesman Robert Hood said Friday.

The project will link engineering instructors from across California and develop online courses for students, Hood added.

The project “will create a network of community-college engineering faculty that will be able to share ideas and educational research designed to help students succeed,” Enriquez said.

With the grant, Cañada will host a teaching institute next summer during which community-college faculty throughout the state will be on campus to learn how to use technology to enhance engineering instruction, school officials said.

The project also seeks to increase the number of minorities in engineering studies and reduce the time and money that transfer students spend on earning a four-year degree in that field.

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